Over The Rainbow: Basking in God’s Light, Celebrating Diversity

Rabbi Stephen Weiss

Parshat Noah 2012

That light is always flowing from God and brings our world into being at every moment.

Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly
There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby

Everyone knows that iconic song from The Wizard of Oz. But did you know that the song was initially deleted from the film after a preview in San Luis Obispo, because MGM chief executive Louis B. Mayer and producer Mervyn LeRoy thought it “slowed down the picture?”

Good thing it wasn’t. That song went on to become the most famous song in modern history. The song is number one on the “Songs of the Century” list compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. The American Film Institute ranked the song as the greatest movie song of all time. It was by American troops in Europe in World War II, as a symbol of the United States. The post office issued a stamp with its lyrics and the song was used as an audio wakeup call on a space shuttle mission. Judy Garland’s original rendition of the song was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or artistically significant. It has been covered by countless artists, including in recent years by Israel Kamakawiwo?ole who mashed it up with Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World, and by Ariana Grande. Both covers topped the charts.

What is it about this song that so captures our hearts and our imagination?

Perhaps the answer is found in the oldest record of a rainbow, right here in this morning’s parshah, Noah. After the flood, God creates the rainbow as a sign of the covenant God is making with humanity. God promises to never again destroy the world by water. So, the rainbow is a promise of healing and wholeness, safety and security after a time of chaos, upheaval and danger. That idea is reflected in the setting for the song in the movie. Little Dorothy has run to her family seeking their help because of the way the town spinster Miss Gulch treated her and her dog, Toto. Auntie Em, Uncle Henry and the farm hands, however, aren’t listening to her. Auntie Em tells Dorothy to “go find a place where you won’t get into any trouble,” as if it is Dorothy’s fault that Miss Gulch was so ornery. It is at this point that Dorothy sings, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” That place she seeks is somewhere that she could be free from worry and fear.

Those in the Florida panhandle who were in the path of Hurricane Michael understand the upheaval of Noah’s flood. The worst storm in the US in 100 years and the worst ever in recorded history in the Florida panhandle, Michael literally trashed whole communities, blowing apart homes and causing mass flooding on a scale that is seldom seen. We pray for all those affected by Hurricane Michael, may they God grant them the ability to rebuild their communities and their lives. Though it may seem near impossible now, may they find their place over the rainbow. I urge all of us to contribute through the Cleveland Jewish Federation to hurricane relief efforts there.

Every one of us also has times in our lives when we long for the safety and security, the comfort and happiness found over the rainbow.

Maybe we or someone we care about is suffering from an illness or some debilitating condition. Maybe we are grappling with grief after the loss of a loved one. Maybe our life has been thrown into turmoil by the loss of a job, or a financial crisis, or the challenges in a relationship. We feel as Noah must have felt – like our world is in chaos.  As for Noah and as for Dorothy so for us, the rainbow holds out before us Gods promise that we can survive the stormy waters of our life and make it to a place where we can again feel comfortable and secure.

That is why, when we see a rainbow, we recite a special blessing: “Praised are You Lord our God King of the Universe, Who remembers His covenant and is faithful to His covenant, keeping His promise.”  We find comfort in Gods assurance that better times are ahead.

What is a rainbow? And why is it chosen by God as the sign of this promise?

Light shines through water droplets in the sky, which act as a prism, bending various frequencies of light at various angles.  The light is separated accorded to colors.  We see the various colors and think of them as separate and distinct.  But behind them, hidden from view, is the original light, unified and one.

The rainbow is a powerful metaphor that can help us understand the way Kabbalah – Jewish mysticism – understands creation. Kabbalistic texts envision God as an infinite unending flow of energy and spirit – a river of light. That light passes through the sefirot – which represent different aspects of God – and  these sefirot act as prisms refracting Gods light and making what is infinite gradually finite, through what the kabbalah calls a series of “cloakings,” until finally that light which was unified energy and spirit becomes the distinctly separate and physical aspects of existence.

That light is always flowing from God and brings our world into being at every moment. That is why in our morning prayers we say that God “continually renews the works of creation.” The river of light flows unceasingly into this world, sustaining its existence. This universe is, so to speak, God’s rainbow.

And just as a rainbow reveals the beauty hidden in what appears at first to be ordinary white light, so the diversity of creation is a testament to the beauty and glory of God. And the same is true for the diversity of humanity. In fact, that notion of the beauty of human diversity is reflected in the second story in parshat Noah, the story of the tower of Babel.

You all know the story. Humanity comes together unified as one with one mission: to create a tower that will reach all the way to God. But God foils their plan by destroying the tower, dispersing the people across the globe and confusing their speech, creating a rich diversity of languages. The plain meaning of the text seems to be that because the people cannot now communicate with each other, they cannot again attempt to build the tower.

The great 16^th century Italian commentator Rabbi Ovadia ben Yaakov Sforno teaches that the reason God dispersed the people and mixed their languages was because in doing this, people would develop unique and diverse cultures. God loves diversity.

What Sforno is teaching us is that the range of human experience – races, cultures, ethnicities, faiths, philosophies, politics are like the colors of the rainbow. We seem to each other different in appearance, ability or ideas, but in fact we are all part of a greater unity, which is the light of God. The greater the diversity, the more it testifies to the greatness of God.

I pray that, whatever storms you face, that you find your rainbow, that your troubles melt like lemon drops and that God will redeem you from the turmoil in your life and restore a sense of stability and blessing.

I pray, too that we come to appreciate the true blessing of the rainbow of humanity.